Skyfall
by jacklondon
Summary: Darren Scott Fletcher had been many things. A former Army Captain with the 110th MP Division. A smuggler with a conscience. And now, a SHIELD agent who was acting liaison with the Avengers. But when SHIELD is exposed to having been compromised, things go sideways very badly. Rated M due to swearing and some sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

Brazil was one of the greatest and the worse countries in the world. Crime rates were high, drugs and prostitution were rampant. Corruption reached from the highest levels of office down to the lonely street cop. To an outside observer, the rampant corruption was abhorrent, as an open sewer is to all those who walk past it. It stinks and fills the nostrils, controlling the brain until one can think of little else except of getting away as fast as possible.

Darren Fletcher, formerly a Captain in the United States Army, knew that he was going to enjoy and hate Brazil for the same reason: the rampant corruption and the chaos that was caused. Throw into that mix a scientist who was scared and on the run who could, without warning, turn into a green rage monster.

He heard shouting and cursing and glanced into the side mirror of one of the cars that was parked on the roadside. Shit. Ross was here, and he had brought his goons. They were too close to Banner, and the last thing downtown Santos needed was what had happened in Rio a few weeks back.

Darren dropped his Turkish cigarette onto the ground and rubbed it out before striding up behind Banner and then, without warning, and shoving him behind a cart that was selling carpets.

"Give me your shirt." He ordered, keeping his voice as calm as possible as he began tearing his jacket off.

"What?" Banner managed to ask, while struggling to keep the Hulk—the Other Guy at bay.

"Your shirt." Darren said again, before realizing what the matter was, "My name is Darren Fletcher. I am an agent of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Espionage and Logistics Division. And right now, I'm the only guy who can help you."

"Why would you do that?" Bruce asked, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, before giving up and just ripping it off and handing it over, his eyes briefly flashing green before returning to normal.

Darren's eye widened slightly before he was back to his previous, brisk business manner, "My orders are to bring you in but you look like a nice guy, Dr. Banner, so I'm going to help you out. From here on out, your name is Brandon O'Hare. This is your passport. Here's 5000 dollars in small bills. I have you booked on a cruiser set for Madagascar that leaves in 23 minutes called the _Apollo_. Go there and disappear. Wear my jacket. Now go!"

"Wait, what about you?"

"I'm going to get some cardio in." He replied, smirking.

With a shove, Darren pushed Dr. O'Hare out into the open before pulling on the shirt, and then turned and ran into the opposite direction.

"Your orders were to bring him in."

"My orders were to protect him from General Ross, and _if necessary_ , bring him in." Darren replied, glaring at each member of the Council, "I carried out my orders from Director Fury and Agent Coulson to the best of my capability. It is my judgment that Dr. Banner is perfectly safe if we leave him alone."

"That man is a threat." Councilman Malik snarled.

"He is very dangerous." Darren replied calmly, "But so are all of us. Romanoff, Barton, Morse, Ward, Trip… we all are dangerous, but that's what makes us effective… I am willing to take the responsibility for Dr. Banner on my own head if anything else happens."

"You said it yourself." Malik replied, "And when, not _if_ the time comes, then there will be hell to pay."

"Well, I better get back to my job, then." Darren replied, smirking, "Better save up to pay off, right?"


	2. Chapter 2

The first sign of trouble was when he missed the exfiltration window. Darren was normally late for a lot of things but exfiltration windows were not something he missed. He had a near perfect record, Coulson thought as he considered the situation. It had been 4 hours since the window had closed. Coulson had made the decision to pull the extraction crew to the Ukrainian border where the closest SHIELD base was and to monitor the situation further.

Coulson wasn't worried about Fletcher. He knew that Darren was more than capable in taking care of himself. He had proven to be markedly hard to kill—his regenerative healing certainly helped—and with a microchip imbedded in his brain thanks to the US military, Darren was basically the next level of evolution. Coulson smiled to himself, aware of how close he sounded to Magneto, before becoming serious again.

4 hours was a long time, true, but in Moscow, time is very relative. He would wait for at least 24 hours before mounting a search and rescue operation.

Without knowing, Coulson had been more than right. Time in Moscow, or Russia—Darren had no idea where he was but he was sure he wasn't in Moscow any more—seemed to be going a lot slower, even though KIM kept telling him to hold on.

The Russians were smart. They were jamming signals in and out of the building, which meant that KIM couldn't do anything to contact anybody at SHIELD.

Igor the giant picked up the giant knife and plunged it again into Darren's shoulder, causing him to scream in pain. As the Russian tore it out of Darren's body, his body started to heal again, but at a much slower rate than for the previous 6 hours. Darren knew his body couldn't take it much longer. He was in way too much pain, and without any food intake, his regenerative healing would start burning internal organs.

"Enough!" A Russian voice came from somewhere behind him, "Get the camera ready."

Igor the giant glared at some figure behind Darren and nodded sullenly as he turned around and got the camera ready.

The man behind him walked until he was in front of Darren and pulled his hair to make Darren look at him. He was blonde with icy blue eyes and a small, iron smile. "Mr. Fletcher. We meet again."

Darren could barely keep his eyes open but he recognized the man, "Ivan?"

A vicious slap to the face, "It is Mr. Kharkov to you, you foolish American!"

Darren took a breath and it felt it rip through his insides, "What do you want?"

"To let your friends, know how you suffer." Kharkov replied as the video camera was set up, "And then I will kill you. Slowly. Painfully. In front of the camera."

He smiled a ghostly smile as he leaned in closer, the putrid stench of vodka obvious on his lips, "And I will enjoy every single moment of it."

Coulson was working on some paperwork when his secretary poked her head inside of the door, "Boss? There's something that you need to see."

"What?" He asked, looking up and then noticing how pale her face was, "What's wrong?"

Wordlessly, she handed him a tablet, "This just came in. Communications is tracing the signal but they aren't optimistic."

Coulson pressed play and watched silently, his face locked in the customary stoic. When the video had ended, his jaws tensed and then relaxed, but the tension never left his eyes, "How many people have seen this?"

"My friend at Communications managed to prevent everybody at SHIELD from seeing it. I took the liberty, sir, of forwarding it to Deputy Director Hill and Director Fury."

Coulson nodded slowly, a plan forming in his head, "Get me Barton and Romanoff."

"We got him, sir." Barton said into the communications as Coulson breathed a sigh of relief, "We just cleared Russian airspace."

"Go to Switzerland. There's a trauma center there." Coulson replied, "I already cleared your landing. And once that's done, I want you guys to report back to the Triskelion immediately."

Barton nodded once, "Yes, sir." He turned off the radio set, punched in the coordinates for the autopilot, and then left the cockpit.

"How is he?" He asked his partner, Natasha Romanoff.

"He'll live." She replied, checking the IV drip that was imbedded in his arm, "For now, at least."

"Coulson wants us to drop him off at a trauma center in Switzerland and then we head back to the Triskelion immediately for further orders."

"No rest for the weary, huh?" She asked without looking up. The chemical sedation seemed to be helping keep him calm for now.

"I thought it was no rest for the wicked." Clint replied, a wolfish smile on his face that quickly was replaced with worry, "He looks okay."

"His healing helped keep him physically well…" Romanoff's voice trailed off, "But mentally, he's a mess."

"KIM told you?"

"She says that he's stuck in a maze and he's almost given up on trying to find a way out." Romanoff replied, "And she can't carry him out. He has to work through it on his own."

"Jesus." Barton replied, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah, only he can save Darren now."


End file.
